Inside her quarters aboard the ship, Lyra was mumbling incoherent words as she moved about in her sleep. She was apparently dreaming and was having a pleasant one at that as she was smiling while letting out a giggle every so often.
“Oh…you really are good with your hands…” Lyra moaned before she pulled her pillow towards her face. It was at this moment when Skyfall came into her quarters unannounced. He was surprised by the sight of his partner trying to French kiss her pillow... or eat it when she started chewing on it.
The unicorn stallion sighed as he moved over to the bed and tried to shake the sleeping mare awake. His shift ended half an hour ago, but his partner never came to relieve him. It has been nearly a whole day since he last slept and he was in no mood to put up with his partner’s weird sleeping habit. However, his efforts to wake the mare proved to be futile as the mare just kept on sleeping.
“Oooh, you really like to play rough don’t you…” she purred before she unexpectedly wrapped her arms around Skyfall, and pulled him into a kiss to which startled the stallion as he desperately tried to get away from the mare.
He opened his mouth to yell at the mare to wake up when Lyra finally woke up and felt her muzzle pressed against his in the middle of a kiss. She blinked her eyes in confusion before she frantically bucked the stallion away from her.
“What the hell Skyfall?” the mint green unicorn exclaimed indignantly as she glared at the dazed stallion.
When he recovered, Skyfall glared at his partner and simply pointed at the clock in exasperation.
“So me being late for my shift gave you the right to come into my room and kiss me!?”
Skyfall opened his mouth to explain himself but was interrupted when the ship’s alarms suddenly went off.
“What the buck is going on? Come on!” Lyra said to the brown unicorn before she ran out the door. The stallion growled in frustration as he picked himself up and followed his partner to the cockpit.
When they reached the cockpit, Lyra quickly reached for the controls and switched off the alarms before turning to the scanners for signs of what might have triggered their ship’s sensor alarms, but the scanners showed nothing on screen.
“Stupid piece of junk!” the mint green unicorn grumbled as she hit the device with her precision gloves in a vain attempt to make it work better. Skyfall was going to comment on her ineffective method of ‘repairs’ when she cut him off, “Shut it. I don’t want to hear a word out of you.” The stallion only growled in annoyance.
While his partner was busy with the scanners, Skyfall looked out the canopy and saw a ship in the distance. He reached for his Ghost Goggles and looked through them as he zoomed in on the ship.
It was a small freighter, which wasn’t an uncommon sight in the Consortium but what made it out of place to the ghost were the large number of guns and artillery attached to its hull as well as the unmistakable skull and crossbones blatantly painted on the front of the hull. It was a pirate ship.
Skyfall was about to point out the pirate ship to Lyra when she looked up from the scanners and spotted the pirate vessel herself.
“Hey look over there, a pirate ship!” Lyra exclaimed. The stallion let out an exasperated sigh and nodded in agreement. “Did you think they saw us?” she asked and received her answer when one of the pirate ship’s cannons fired a shot at them, which missed their ship by several miles as the metal slug flew off into the void of space. “Okay they saw us…”
Their communication system then turned on by itself as a gruff voice came through the speakers, “That was a warning shot. Power down your ship and prepare to be boarded or be blasted to kingdom come.” The voice threatened as several of the pirate ship’s guns swiveled around and locked onto their ship.
The two Ghosts looked at each other before they burst into laughter, and since their communications system were currently set to only receive instead of transmit, the pirate didn’t hear the two ponies laughing themselves silly at the threat.
“I’ll say this again, power down your ship or I’ll shoot!” the voice said impatiently. Lyra looked to her partner and asked in a childishly pleading tone.
“Can I do it this time? I got a routine I’ve been meaning to try out.” to which the stallion raised his eyebrows in bemusement before he stepped aside, letting the unicorn mare reach for the controls and set the comlink to transmit as the face of a grey earth stallion appeared on screen.
“H-hello? Can I help you?” Lyra asked timidly. The stallion raised a brow at the mare before him and let out a low whistle.
“Well looky here boys, we got ourselves a fine looking lady onboard that ship! Good thing we didn’t shoot it down, eh?” the crew responded with various jeers and catcalls that made Skyfall smirk as he quietly exchanged his HFB for a pair of combat knives. He’ll need their silent efficiency instead of the motorized blade’s power for what they’re going to do later.
“P-please, don’t shoot!" Lyra said in a panicked tone. "I was just passing through, nothing more. Honest!”
“Oh I don't know about that my dear. You see, you’re in Rust Reaver territory and you gotta pay the toll if you want to pass through here.” The pirate explained.
“And w-what’s the toll?” Lyra asked hesitantly.
The stallion chuckled darkly before he said, “You let me worry about that my dear. Just power down your ship and let my boys aboard so they can check you…and your cargo out. Once we find what we want, we’ll be on our way.”
“P-promise?” the mare asked hesitantly.
“You have my word as a captain. Now power down your ship.” The pirate demanded again.
At the pirate’s insistence, Lyra turned reached for the controls and cut the link before powering down the ship’s systems save for the life support and gravity accelerators. She then turned around to face Skyfall, who was clapping his precision gloves together in mock applause at her performance.
“Shut up and get ready.” Lyra ordered in a flustered voice. “I need to get down to the cargo hold and wake up sleeping beauty…” Skyfall raised one of his eyebrows questioningly and was about to ask why when Lyra cut him off. “…I want to give her a quick test run before we present her to the boss.”
The unicorn stallion shrugged nonchalantly as he grabbed the rest of his gear and followed her to the cargo hold, a devilish smirk creeping onto his face. It has been ages since they lived up to their name as Ghosts.
The Rust Reavers became excited when their shuttle finally connected with the larger stationary ship. Since the captain believed it was going to be an easy raid, he had decided to send only a small team of his men lead by his first mate to ‘acquire’ any valuables aboard the shuttle.
When the airlock doors finally opened up, the first mate walked into the unlit interior of the shuttle. He let out a low whistle when he shined a light on the sleek interior of the shuttle. The ship appeared to be built with top of the line parts, which could go for good number of bits on the black market.
“Boys, it appears that our luck is finally turning around.” He said to the others as he led them further into the shuttle. They soon found out that the shuttle, despite its size, had a very spacious interior when they reached a small intersection splitting off into two separate corridors.
“Alright, let’s split up and look for the cargo hold. If there’s anything valuable on the ship, it’s there.”
“What about the girl?” one of the pirates asked as he licked his lips suggestively. “Think I could have a go at her before we go back?” The other Reavers chuckled with their comrade and nodded in agreement.
The first mate rolled his eyes and said, “Fine, but only after we make sure we get everything. The last thing I want is to carry extra weight because one of you overdid it again. Now split up and look around.” He ordered before everyone separated and went down their chosen corridor.
“Come out, come out wherever you are pretty girl. I got a present for you.” the Reaver said jokingly as he prowled the dark corridor, looking for any sign of the mare. His companion, on the other hand, wasn’t as amused by his antics.
“We’re supposed to look for the loot first, remember?” the pirate disregarded his words as he continued looking for the mare. “Fine, if that’s how you want it. More loot for me.” The pirate scoffed before he walked off, leaving the perverted pirate to his ‘hunt’, not noticing the shadowy blur following close behind.
The pirate snorted at his companion as he continued calling out for the elusive mare to show herself but only silence answered him back. However, his efforts were soon rewarded when he heard the distinctly feminine giggling coming from down the corridor.
“Hello? Pretty lady, is that you?” the pirate asked hungrily. He was answered with more giggling and followed it until he found a light peeking out of a door. The pirate cautiously approached the door and looked inside.
He grinned from ear to ear when he saw the mint green unicorn mare lying suggestively on a bed in the middle of the room while wearing a skintight bodysuit, and she was looking at him with a half-lidded gaze as she gestured for him to enter. Not wanting to disappoint the beautiful mare, the pirate eagerly opened the door and walked right in.
Minutes later, Skyfall, with his suit stained with splatters of blood, walked into the room and saw Lyra wiping her knife clean on the bed sheets. He raised an eyebrow at the happy grin on the dead pirate’s face as he lied in a pool of his own blood. He was about to ask what she did to the poor fool when she interrupted him.
“I gave him a nice dream before he died.” She explained cryptically before she sauntered over to her partner and whispered into his ear seductively, “I could give you a nice dream too, if you want.”
The stallion quickly shook his head in response before backing away from the mare, who became disappointed by his rejection but took it in stride as she walked past him. She then turned around and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, much to the stallion’s confusion.
“Your loss…Oh and by the way, sorry about the room.” She said apologetically before disappearing into the shadows.
Skyfall blinked when he turned around and realized that the room where Lyra had killed the pirate in was his own room! He growled in annoyance as he pulled off the bloodstained sheets and covered the dead pirate with it before he left to chase after his partner.
The first mate smiled as he shined his light on the door that led to what he believed to be the cargo hold. He didn’t bother to call for the Rust Reaver that came with him since he wanted to have first dibs on loot.
With this in mind, he opened the door and walked through it. Inside, he immediately saw the cryo pod set up in the middle of the room. Wondering why something like this would be here, he approached it and wiped away the frost but saw there was nothing inside of it.
A bit put off by the anticlimactic discovery, he explored the rest of the room before he discovered a number of crates in the corner marked ‘Provisions’. He opened one of them up to see what was inside, and was disappointed again when he found it was filled with freeze-dried rations.
He closed the lid before he opened up the next crate, expecting it to contain more food but let out a low whistle when he saw dozens of military grade precision gloves inside of it. He quickly opened up the one next to it and saw that it contained hundreds of stimpack injectors. The mare must have been a smuggler looking to cut back on costs by not hiring an escort. Poor business decision on her part.
Eager to share the exciting news with the others, he reached for his communicator to contact the rest of his team, “Boys, I found the cargo hold and we scored big time! Get down here and help me with the crates.” He waited for a reply but all he got was static.
“Hello? Can any of you idiots hear me?” he asked as he kept calling his team but became nervous when none of them answered back. He tried to fix his communicator by shaking it but the static persisted.
“Damn it, they better not be messing about. We got a job to do.” He growled as he made his way for the exit, but stopped when he heard footsteps behind him. The stallion quickly reached for his pistol and turned to face his would-be attacker, but saw nothing.
“Must be my nerves playing tricks on me…” he muttered before he turned back to the door, only to come face to face with a dark unicorn mare wearing a black robe. He was about to shoot her when the dark room was suddenly bathed in a purple light just before he felt something stab into his chest and out of his back.
He looked down at the blade of energy inside his body before the mare pulled it out of him and let him drop to the floor, dead.
“Did I do good Sovereign?” Seeker asked hopefully before a doll appeared from behind her and floated next to her.
“Good work taking out these pirates, Seeker. Now go find my friends by the airlock, they’ll need your help taking out the rest of those scum.”
“But shouldn’t we just run? I don’t think we should take our chances with them.” Seeker protested, but was met with a slap from the doll’s fluffy limbs.
“What did I say about thinking?” the doll snapped impatiently
“That I should let you do the thinking for me…” Seeker replied in a subdued tone of voice.
“Good, now get going.” the dark unicorn mare did as she was told and vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving the doll alone in the cargo hold before it dropped lifelessly to the floor.
Inside one of the many training rooms of the Dominion Intelligence Academy on Korhal, a pegasus colt was punched in the face, which sent him sprawling to the floor. The young pony felt his blood flow out of his bruised muzzle as he laid there on the floor, breathless and worn out.
The colt’s tired eyes followed his sparring partner, a red black-manned pegasus stallion as he stood over the breathless colt and looked down at him dismissively.
“Come on you piece of shit! I'm pushing forty and you still couldn’t land a hit?” The stallion mocked before he looked at the other cadets who were sparring either with an instructor, or with a fellow cadet, and frowned at their sub-par performance.
“Seriously, were you all sleeping during combat training for the past year or what?! You're even worse than my last class!” he shouted at the cadets, many of whom lost their matches when they became distracted by his words. The stallion held the open palm of his precision gloves to his head and let out an exasperated sigh.
“Idiots...the lot of them, all complete idiots...” he muttered to himself before turning his attention back to the colt on the floor, “On your hooves, now!” he demanded as he took on a combat ready stance.
“Captain Moonraker.” A staff-pony addressed him.
“What?!” The pegasus shouted as he turned to the pony that interrupted him. The colt stayed down when he thought he was being given a reprieve, but was proven wrong when the stallion suddenly stomped down on his chest, causing him to gasp out in pain.
“An urgent call just came in for you on the line.” The staff-pony said as he handed the phone over to the instructor, while doing his best to ignore the poor colt struggling to breathe under the stallion’s hoof.
“Who from?” Moonraker questioned, applying more pressure on the colt's chest, which made him cry out in pain.
“Vice Admiral Sparkle.” the staff pony replied.
“Oh.” The stallion uttered in surprise. “Lil’ ol’ Twily is calling me? Why I feel honored that she took the time to bother calling me.” He said as he pressed his hoof down even harder on the struggling colt’s chest causing him to cry out in pain before he passed out.
“I wonder if she can brighten up my mood?” He muttered before he lifted his hoof off the unconscious cadet and called out to everyone in the room. “That's going to be all for today folks. See you tomorrow…and make sure you pick up the slack next time.” He said before he kicked the colt awake.
At his order, all sparring matches ended and everyone made their way out of the room. When he was finally alone, Moonraker answered the call and brought the phone up to his ear as he cheerfully greeted Twilight. “Hey, hey, hey, how's my most favorite Ghost doing?”
“Hi Moon...” The mare responded with not quite as much enthusiasm as the stallion did. “...Are you alone, because I need to talk to you about a 'business matter'.”
He took a quick look around the room before he answered, “There's not a single soul around me. What's on your mind?”
“Okay. There's something I need you to do, but it's a two parter.” Twilight said.
“Alright, you're the boss. What do you need?”
“A shuttle from Cadia will arrive and dock at station Zeta Kron-66 in Korhal's orbit in one week. I need you to go there and meet with the shuttle pilot, I'll send you his profile later. He’s going to give you a package, which you will need to deliver to the Emperor as soon as possible, without Hawkens finding out about it.”
“A little smuggling under the Big H's nose? Sounds easy enough. What’s the next part?” he inquired.
“You might not like this part, but it involves you having to stop training recruits for a while.” The mare on the other end explained hesitantly.
A disapproving scowl formed on Moonraker's face, “Now look here missy, I know that I'm supposed to do whatever you tell me to, but even if outrank me, that's one tall order there. You better have a good reason for this. And I mean a really good one.”
“Oh, but I do.” She replied. “I was just about to get to the good part. Do you remember one of your former students? A certain half-confederate, half-khalai mare, to be more precise.”
The stallion's scowl curved upwards into a wicked grin when Twilight mentioned that particular description. “Rain Sight? One of the best agents I ever had the pleasure of training? Oh I remember her alright.” he smiled as he briefly reminisced about the years Rain Sight had spent under his unique tutelage.
“She was such a sweet and innocent little thing, that is, until I got through with her and fixed that.” He chuckled before his voice took on a more perverted tone. “I even saw a recent picture of her. Mmm, mmmm, she turned out into mighty fine looking lady…mighty fine indeed.” The pegasus paused for a bit as a thought entered his mind.
“To be quite honest, except for your seduction techniques, a really big fan of those by the way, she tops your skills by miles. It’s a wonder why she’s still stuck as a field agent.”
“Yes, yes, I'm sure you can tell me how she’s better than me all day, but let’s get back to the matter at hand, shall we?” Twilight said, before continuing. “My point is that as part of your official initiation, you will accompany me to one of our secret facilities and if everything goes according to plan, you’ll get to pick up your newest cadet.”
“So what, I got dozens of wannabe agents running around my facility, what’s so special about this one?” he said dismissively.
“Remember when I mentioned Rain Sight?”
“Yeah? What about her?”
“Let’s just say the cadet I’m referring to bears a striking resemblance to her.”
“Oh? You actually found someone who's like my little Rain?” Moonraker asked, now with more interest in Twilight’s proposal.
“'Like her' is somewhat of an understatement, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for you.” Twilight said, before letting out a soft giggle.
Moonraker himself chuckled in return and said. “Oh Vice Admiral...you know me so well. It's almost as if you were a student of mine, which I'm kind of bummed you weren’t.”
Humoring the stallion, the mare asked. “Oh and why is that captain?”
“Well...” He hummed before he answered. “...I've always wondered how you would've end up if I had trained you back then. The chance to personally break your body and spirit before I mold you into something more…deadly.” He said ominously, before letting out a light-hearted chuckle, “Who knows, maybe you could’ve been the deadliest agent the Dominion has ever seen if you had gone through my training. Too bad we’ll never know...”
The purple unicorn shuddered involuntarily at the thought of having to spend her childhood with this clearly mentally unstable stallion as her mentor. “Yes...too bad indeed. In any case, captain, be prepared for the shuttle's arrival. I'll contact you with further instructions when it's time for you to leave Korhal. That'll be all.”
“Fine. See you soon Twily.” Moonraker cheerfully said before ending the call. He chuckled to himself as he tossed the phone into the air and catching again before he walked out of the training room, whistling a catchy tune as he did so.
The captain of the Rust Reavers smirked when he saw his men finally returning from their little raid and it appeared they were bringing the other shuttle back with them as it flew alongside their ship. The grey earth stallion had two good guesses as to why they had taken so long to return to the ship, one of which was more likely to have occurred than the other.
He had thought his first mate would have kept the men under control. He shook his head wearily before he made his way down to the hangar bay. Hopefully, his men didn’t rough up the mare too badly; he’d hate to play with damaged goods.
“Captain on deck!” one of the crew declared when the grey earth stallion entered the hangar. He wasn’t surprised to see many of his crew gathering around the sleek new shuttle which had just docked in earlier, all of them eager to see what kind of loot the first mate and his team had brought back.
Many of the pirates stepped aside when they saw their captain making his way toward the shuttle, they knew better than to get in the grey stallion’s way after a raid. As he approached the shuttle, he saw one of his men fiddling with the shuttle’s door.
“What’s going on here?” the captain suddenly asked, making the crewman jump before he turned around to face him.
“It’s the doors captain, I can’t open it.” The captain then rolled his eyes before he pulled out his communicator, and contacted his first mate.
“Alright, you had your fun, open up the door so the rest of us can see the loot” the captain didn’t have to wait long before they heard metallic grinding noise coming from the back of the shuttle as the ramp to its cargo hold lowered itself down to the hangar floor.
The crew cheered when they saw the first mate standing at the top of the ramp. One of the crew called out to him but received no response. Thinking that something was wrong, the crewman got up onto the ramp and approached the first mate to get a closer look but his eyes widened in fear when he saw the gaping hole in the dead pirate’s chest.
He was about to turn around and warn the others when a knife was sent flying into the back of his head, killing him instantly as the blade plunged deep into his head. The pirates watched in shock as the body dropped and tumbled down the ramp before coming to a stop at their hooves.
The Rust Reavers received another shock when they heard a gunshot before their captain suddenly dropped to the floor with a bullet hole in his head. The pirates quickly pulled out their weapons as they searched for the intruder. They quickly spotted a brown unicorn stallion with a canister rifle standing on top of the other shuttle.
Skyfall gave them a mock salute before he threw several metal balls into the air and teleported away. The pirates watched the metal balls as they rained down on them before they exploded into thick clouds of smoke, covering the entire hangar in it as it caused its occupants to go into coughing fits as their eyes started to water from the gas.
Seconds passed before more gunshots were heard, followed by the sounds of a blade cutting through flesh as more bodies hit the floor. Many of the Rust Reavers panicked and started firing their weapons in every direction, mowing down their own comrades in their ultimately vain attempt to slay the intruders.
Safely hidden in the support beams high above the hangar floor, Skyfall watched the self-inflicted carnage through his goggles and chuckled as he shook his head at the pirates’ sheer stupidity. However, he was quite impressed at how Lyra’s little puppet was warping around the hangar, taking out targets all while avoiding the storm of bullets which permeated the room.
He was just going to sit back and enjoy the show when he heard Lyra’s voice in his head, Who said you could slack off? Grab your gun and start shooting! The stallion rolled his eyes at his partner before he slapped in a fresh magazine into his rifle and took aim.
When the smoke finally dissipated, the few surviving Rust Reavers became horrified at the sight of the bodies of their fallen comrades, which littered the hangar floor, but they soon became more concerned for their own safety when they realized that none of the bullet-riddled corpses were those of the intruders.
One of the Reavers let out a cry when Seeker suddenly appeared before him in a puff of smoke. Before the hapless pirate could react, his weapon was sliced in half by the mare’s warp blade. The gun fell to the floor, along with the upper torso of the now dead pirate, which was soon joined by the rest of him as it became a bloody heap.
Taking advantage of their shocked state, Seeker teleported to the nearest pirate and stabbed him through the back but the pirates quickly recovered and concentrated their fire on the mare, who used her latest victim as a meat shield, which wouldn’t last long under the relentless barrage.
The pirates became more confident as they pressed their assault, eager to avenge their fallen captain and comrades, only to fall prey to Skyfall’s shots as he systematically took out the remaining pirates with consecutive headshots with his rifle. When the last of the pirates lay dead on the hangar floor, Seeker pulled her warp blade out of what little was left of her meat shield as she started conversing with a doll that wasn’t even there.
Messing with her is so fun, too bad it drains me so much.
Skyfall rolled his eyes as he stood up on the beam and admired their handiwork. Dozens of pirates lay dead or dying on the hangar floor, the survivors would probably spread rumors of how a couple of ponies took down their entire crew, further cementing the Ghosts’ already notorious reputation as lethal killers in the sector. Well, provided they left any survivors that is.
He gathered up his weapons and teleported down to the hangar floor and saw Seeker approaching him.
“Thank you for the timely assistance. I wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t stepped in back there.” she said before bowing to him in gratitude.
He nodded silently in return and was about to suggest that they return to the ship when he noticed the Dark Templar’s eyes widening in shock before she activated her warp blade and vanished into a swirling vortex of black smoke.
Look out! His partner mentally screamed at him before he heard a gunshot seconds before he felt the bullet tear into his body. The impact of the shot spun him around and giving him a glimpse of his attacker, an orange pegasus mare pointing a smoking gun at him before Seeker reappeared behind her and decapitated the pirate.
Skyfall fell down to the hangar floor as his eyelids suddenly grew unbearably heavy. The last thing he saw was the worried look on his partner's face as she called out his name over and over before everything turned dark.